September 28, 2017

School is in session with Assassin's Creed Origins

Ubisoft has announced that in early 2018, Assassin's Creed Origins is getting a free update that will transform the game from, well a game to a teachers aide. Discovery Tour is a new mode, which will allow free exploration of the games world, that will let players explore everything, without the need to worry about anything else.

“This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, that we’ve been asked to do by teachers, by institutions,” says Jean Guesdon, creative director for Assassin’s Creed Origins. “Discovery Tour is another way to enjoy the beauty of the world we’ve recreated. It’s a more educative mode, so it’s clearly focused on education and on bringing to people actual facts, more academic knowledge.”

Separate from the main game, Discovery Tour annotates the game world with dozens of interactive tours curated by historians and Egyptologists. Each focuses on a different subject, including the Great Pyramids, the life of Cleopatra, mummification, and more. Additionally, Discovery Tour lets players roam the entire game world without constraints or threats, exploring a sprawling landscape that includes Memphis, Alexandria, the Sand Sea, and the Giza Plateau at their own pace.

“When you start to tour, you will have a path that will lead you from station to station, in order to learn more,” Guesdon says. “For example, the mummification process, from the cleaning of the body to the removal of the organs, up to the ritual of the opening of the mouth. I hope that teachers will seize this opportunity to present that to their students, so they can learn with this interactive medium.“We spent years recreating Ancient Egypt, documenting ourselves, validating the content with historians, with consultants, and we feel that many more people than just the players can benefit from that,” says Guesdon.

While I don't know if I will spend time in this mode myself, it still sounds like a wicked idea. Assassin's Creed Origins is out for Xbox One, PC and PlayStation 4 on October 27th.